Happy anniversary to...

Awwww... just two young lovebirds... (YES... young!)

Yesterday was our Anniversary! We had to work , but after we went to Black Angus and ate and ate and ate... it was WAY yum but the best part was being with my hubby and just talkin and reminiscing! Great man... great times.... great life! Our wedding day

Spongemama Squarepants and Trent's "I'm Ready" 18 party!

Trent thought he was going to just have a family dinner for his birthday... but Spongemama and the fam did a little planning to make his 18th a little more exciting. Since Trent is the last kid... I wanted to do a kid party like when everyone was young. Occassionally I would dress up for these things so... I made a Spongemama appearance. And why did we pick a Spongebob theme you might wonder?... Let's just say Trent is a Spongebob fan! Well... I like Spongebob too... and so do "some" of the fam as well. Here are some highlights:

The hostess... Spongemama... I'm ready!

Welcome sign

Everything is festive...

Spongebob krispie treats and Patrick Star sugar cookies made by Kristin. Aren't they so cute?!? They were way yummy too!

Trent picked the menu... Chicken parmesean and spaghetti!

Table for two!

Playing the "Who's the most like Spongebob" game. People had to vote on family members that had characteristics or features like Spongebob... oh what an honor to be a winner!

One of the lucky winners and her great prize package. Erin won for hands and smile most like Spongebob.

Trent was showered with Spongebob stuff... I didn't even know Spongebob had a greats hits CD!

Awwww.... how cute!

Wow... that box of fruit snacks came with a bonus!

The smoke alarm didn't even go off after blowing out all those candles... no that's not a cake... It's candles on top of magic cookie bars... one of Trent's favorites!

So what does it feel like to have all my kids be... well ... adults now?!?... Hmmm ... let me think...


How cute.. this is a pic of the kids right before Brandon left and Dustin was still in Afghanistan...
When Dustin was visiting... whoa... getting a little silly!

Well... it didn't take too much thought... ya know what... kids will always be kids! It's absolutely GREAT to be their mom!

Birthday Boys!

Happy Birthday to Brandon and Trent! Saturday was Brandon's and Today is Trent's. Their birthdays have always been a big occassion and this is the first time since Trent's first birthday that they haven't been celebrated together! For YEARS... whatever we got Brandon for his birthday we HAD to get Trent also. It was great fun! So Happy Birthday to the "little" boys
(we finally had to drop the "little" part) who are still affectionately know in this family as "the boys"! I can't believe you guys are this OLD!

News and pics from Brazil!

Here's a few pics and excerpts from the latest from Brandon in Brazil!

Hey family,Here's some more pics of what i did this week. This week we did a service project and we helped an investigator build a wall. Everything here is built with those bricks that you see. Also, there´s no measuring involved, just lay the bricks down as strait as possible.

We also helped with the bithday party of the son of our bishop. Birthday parties for the first two years are really special occasions, then after, nothing special.

This week we also had a baptism but the pic won´t download for some reason. But we baptized a lady named Lecelena, and she is a middle aged lady that just accepted everything we said. She stoped drinking coffee in one day she reads the bom everyday and has a super strong testimony already. She also has a son that we will baptise this week ...But the kicker is the the drain broke and we had to empty the font with buckets. We had to do it twice because we found out it was broken when we went to fill up the font and it was already full. That was fun.

Then afterward, we went to our favorite spot to eat açaí. I don´t know if you can see it very well but it is like something you would buy at jamba juice.P-day... We can´t do anything on p-day! We can´t play sports, go to museums or anything like that, and we have to be wearing our missionary clothes. So on p-day we just go use the internet, go to the store to buy our food for the week and then just chill at home. Not anything exciting.

Comment from mom... I think Brandon looks great in his pictures!

Slowly...

The remodeling continues... a little s l o w but still making progress. We have a pile of wood flooring, a pile of tile, a pile of baseboards and molding, a pile of paint and a pile of related accessories that go along with those projects. Now we just need a BIG pile of time! The latest step is this lovely shade of graham cracker being painted in the bathroom remodel:There's Michaelangelo hard at work again!

Pictures from Brazil...

Finally... some pictures from Brazil... and Provo...

The famous MAP pose while he was at the MTC in Provo

With his roommates in Brazil. All the Americans are from Mesa!
Sao Paulo

A ward building in Brazil

Brandon and a member

Celebrate!

Last night we did a LOT of celebrating... First of all it was Ty's birthday! He is two! Then we couldn't pass up the opportunity to celebrate St. Patty's day by having our traditional GREEN food! Here's the birthday boy... and his cute mom!Lot of presents!

Two candles!

Everyone was festive!...

Jaron and Kristin
Mason
A lucky four leaf clover!

Mike celebrating his Irish heritage... I tell him he is part leprechaun... so where is my a pot o' gold!?!

For dinner we had corned beef, cabbage, green bean casserole, green jello, green kool aid, green mashed potatoes (I didn't add enough green... they looked like old potatoes!) green gravy and biscuits with green butter! Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmm!
Lots of food
Diggin in...

So much green food...

But BEWARE... If you overdose on GREEN food you could end up like this:

So... have a blessed St. Patty's day all of ye and don't forget to be wearin o' the green or a pinch might getcha!... Those leprechauns... they're sneaky little dudes!

from Brazil...

Here are excerpts from the latest email:

Oí famíliaHow´s everything going? Everything is going great here. This week was pretty cool, we had a conference with presidente and sister tobias. So the two zones that are in Uberlandia were together on thursday. The conference was really good, Presidente gave trainings for us then we ate then sister tobias gave trainings and spoke a little about how to be healthy, then we practiced the 3rd lesson which is the gospel of jesus christ. Then presidente spoke again and at the end he had all the junior companions stand up and until tomorrow we are the senior companion. ...The district I´m in consists of our house which has 4 missionaries and and the other missionaries in our ward but don´t live with us and they are the district leaders. The other district is the 4 sisters and the district leaders. We also had an activity on saturday that the other elders put together but we helped out. It was funny because they put it together and we had about 70 people there but 4 people lived in their area and the rest in ours. Let´s just say we have alot of references now. But the activity was cool there was basketball, ping pong, a soccer tournament, and at the end there was juice and hot dogs. Hot dogs here are not like hot dogs in america... And on sunday they brought 26 peole to their sacrament meeting which technically are ours but they went to their ward. Their ward starts at 8:30 and they have class first and our ward starts at 9 and we have sacrament first. About my favorite treat here in brazil... it would have to be açaí. It´s pronounced ah-sai-ee. anyway, it is a fruit and it is way good i don´t know how to describe it. And we go to a store kind of like jamba juice that only makes açaí stuff. Its the same consinstancy as stuff at jamba juice, its good with bananas or granola or ice cream if you buy the really expensive one but i will have to get a picture of it sometime. If we are having a slow night when everything is falling through or its just been awhile we´ll go and get açaí. The store is kind of like jamba juice but takes forever for them to make stuff, i mean forever like half an hour forever just for 4. ...Any other questions just ask.Elder Lewis

Fried pies!!!

I am a HAPPY girl this week... not just because life is great.... but because I found out that KFC has started a value menu which includes apple turnovers. So what's the BIG deal?!?... Well... I will tell you. You might have to be as old as dirt to remember this... but years ago McDonalds had apple pies that were deep fried and flaky and crunchy and oh so WAY yummy. I loved those things.... THEN McDonalds decided they had to be health conscious (McDonalds and HEALTHY in the same sentence?) so instead of fried pies they did a big promo on their new BAKED pies... oh so NOT the same... not even close! So I thought I would live out my life fried pieless... UNTIL THIS WEEK!!!... I was going through the Wednesday junk mail and came upon this flyer. I looked and exclaimed... yes EXCLAIMED... LOOK!!!... those look just like those great little pies I used to love!!! and pointed to the picture of little pies and told my story to the fam. So to make a short story longer... I HAD to check it out right away... AND... I've been to KFC twice since Wednesday (I live AND work very close to KFC's) and have savored each bite of my long lost yummy treat! Yep... they are almost EXACTLY like the pies of my younger days (and cheap too!). Thank you KFC!!!!!

from Brazil...

Oí família Looks like home is a buzy place now. The bathroom does look a little bigger. That´s wierd that is hot there now, it´s probably about 90 here too. It hasn´t rained in a while and its just been hot now. Carneval is over and we can get back to teaching because i´m sure just about everyone needs to repent now. This week a guy in our ward recieved his mission call. He´s going to Rio de Janerio norte (River of January north). You should be glad i didn´t go there because rio is probably the most dangerous place besides the middle of the amazons. Some places the police aren´t even allowed to. He had to wait 4 months for his call and he is reporting to the ctm march 12 which is only 3 weeks after he got his call. We didn´t have any baptisms but the other elders in our house did. We were helping with the font because the drain was broken and elder souza was doing something and i don´t know what he was doing but a cement thing smashed his fingers and it was pretty bad. They were bleeding all over the place and his fingernails got all messed up too. But the baptism went on and he went to the doctor clinic place. But we taught a ton of lessons this week (41) and a bunch of novos (news) so hopefully we get some baptisms. But all is well here, anyone have any questions for me? Taking day by day because alot changes everyday. We still eat everyday. It´s weird, lunch only fell through once when elder wardrop was my comp., but lunch has already fallen through 4 times this transfer with elder silva. But everything is going well and hopefully i´ll have something cool to talk about next week. But until then. Talk to you all next week.

The final game of the season...

Well... it was a great basketball game and we played hard... but we lost by one lousy point! Here are some pics...

the sneaky pass

Trent
Trent getting fouled

Tau

Trent going for the three

New paint...

With the wall project finished... now begins LOTS of painting... here is our lovely new shade of beige... the darker color is the new color:

Michelangelo... the great painter.. at work!